Nov. 1, 2005: NSA urges: Let’s slow down the freight train!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE —Nov. 1, 2005 NSA CONTACTS: NE-Lakeitha Elliott, 503-287-1430; SE-Cindy Young, 503-232-6559; SW-Ruth Adkins, 503-977-2933

NSA urges: Let’s slow down the freight train!

• Jefferson redesign process rapidly approaching deadline • Another round of “wham-bam” neighborhood school closures likely to be announced mid-November, will be pushed through in just 30 days Portland, Ore. — As their December deadline rapidly approaches, the community volunteers on the Jefferson Design Team continue their good-faith efforts to recommend a grade configuration and programs for the Jefferson middle/high schools. Having observed and contributed to this design process, the Neighborhood Schools Alliance has the following comments: Design Team has not had enough time to do their job right. Through no fault of the Team members, progress has been very slow. It took four months for PPS to convene the Team’s first meeting. There have been few opportunities to gather public input. During Oct.-Nov., Team members are being sent off to distant cities on time-consuming site visits—most of them charter schools with different neighborhood demographics. In short, the Team has not had enough time to provide meaningful recommendations. The deadline should be extended so that the Team can do the job they are dedicated to do. PPS still not getting down to specifics. Despite repeated requests from team members and the community, PPS still has not provided any information about how different configurations would work in terms of facilities and numbers of students. (NSA has prepared a spreadsheet showing this information, and will submit it to the Team in hopes it will be used as a starting point for a substantive discussion.) Nor has there been research into what specific programs/curriculum would attract local families. Is “filling the building” the real reason for 7-12? Although PPS likes to change the subject by accusing NSA of being “negative” and “not keeping an open mind,” the fact is we have yet to hear any solid, educational rationale for the Superintendent’s 7-12 plan. All we can conclude is that the 7-12 plan is really just about consolidation of facilities—filling the Jefferson building and closing Tubman. The problem is, if the public rejects the 7-12 configuration, as seems likely given the strong community opposition thus far, then this strategy will fail. Enrollment will continue to decline, setting us on an inevitable course to close Jefferson in a few years. Is 7-12 a done deal? As far as we can tell, the Superintendent’s 7-12 proposal has nothing to do with raising educational excellence or increasing enrollment. The only education-related rationale we have heard is “fewer transitions are better for students.” However, the widely popular K-8 model provides the same benefit. Moreover: • Why is the Jeff cluster being asked to consolidate its high school into an untested, unpopular 7-12 model to deal with the citywide issues of declining enrollment and budget problems—especially when the Jefferson cluster has the second highest number of PPS students living in the neighborhood? • Why have Jefferson cluster elementary schools already been converted to the K-6 model—yet this is not supposed to be a “done deal”? Why has Boise Eliot been taken out of the Jeff cluster? Despite repeated requests, the rationale for the Board’s decision to remove Boise Eliot Elementary from the Jefferson cluster (the district’s smallest high school) to the Grant cluster (the district’s largest high school) has yet to be explained. This illogical Board decision, resulting in an additional enrollment loss of over 500 Jefferson neighborhood students, was made the same evening the Board passed the resolution to create the Design Team, based upon the need to increase enrollment in the Jefferson cluster. More school closures coming soon? According to the district’s timeline, another round of neighborhood school closures could be announced in mid-November, with public comment in a few hearings at the end of November and a final “rubber-stamp” decision in mid-December. Thus once again the entire closure process would be pushed through in just 30 days, without meaningful public input in the decision making process. Where is the long-term planning? It’s high time for the District to slow down and take a good look at where we are going with neighborhood school closures. The long-term enrollment decline is projected to even out in a few years. Let’s all work together—PPS, the City, and community members—and take a big-picture look at the overall number and location of school buildings, and talk about how many more the District feels it needs to close, and the cost/benefits of neighborhood schools. The District’s current mode—lurching from one year to the next, closing a handful of schools each year, leaving angry families and abandoned school buildings in their wake—is not a recipe for success. Closing neighborhood schools is not a solution to the budget crisis. • Why not focus on building up enrollment so we don’t have to close schools? (Especially in the Jefferson cluster, the children are there. They just aren’t choosing their neighborhood schools, due to the inequitable level of educational programs and opportunities compared to other PPS schools.) • Why isn’t PPS putting in PreK district-wide, and looking for after-school childcare providers, to bring in young families and fill excess space—rather than looking for “education-related” renters after the school is closed? • Why aren’t they closing the district’s many portable classrooms, instead of schools? • Why are the elite focus option/magnet programs (Japanese Immersion, Winterhaven, Sunnyside, Odyssey, etc.) given free rein to take over neighborhood school buildings? Why are the small program size and per-student costs of these “boutique” schools never questioned? We hope that rather than announce another round of poorly thought-out neighborhood school closures, this November the District will launch a collaborative PPS/City/community process to look at an array of proactive solutions to increase enrollment and keep our public school system afloat. The Neighborhood Schools Alliance is a group of parents, teachers, and community members from all areas of Portland working together to support and strengthen our neighborhood schools. NSA contacts: NE-Lakeitha Elliott, 503-287-1430; SE-Cindy Young, 503-232-6559; SW-Ruth Adkins, 503-977-2933 For more information on NSA and to sign up for NSA updates & info, visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NSANews/